83 research outputs found
Quantum escape of the phase in a strongly driven Josephson junction
A quantum mechanical analysis of the Josephson phase escape in the presence
of both dc and ac bias currents is presented. We find that the potential
barrier for the escape of the phase is effectively suppressed as the resonant
condition occurs, i.e. when the frequency of the ac bias matches the
Josephson junction energy level separation. This effect manifests itself by a
pronounced drop in the dependence of the switching current on the power
of the applied microwave radiation and by a peculiar double-peak structure
in the switching current distribution . The developed theory is in a
good accord with an experiment which we also report in this paper. The obtained
features can be used to characterize certain aspects of the quantum-mechanical
behavior of the Josephson phase, such as the energy level quantization, the
Rabi frequency of coherent oscillations and the effect of damping.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Physical Review B (Rapid
Communication
Determination of the complex microwave photoconductance of a single quantum dot
A small quantum dot containing approximately 20 electrons is realized in a
two-dimensional electron system of an AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructure. Conventional
transport and microwave spectroscopy reveal the dot's electronic structure. By
applying a coherently coupled two-source technique, we are able to determine
the complex microwave induced tunnel current. The amplitude of this
photoconductance resolves photon-assisted tunneling (PAT) in the non-linear
regime through the ground state and an excited state as well. The out-of-phase
component (susceptance) allows to study charge relaxation within the quantum
dot on a time scale comparable to the microwave beat period.Comment: 5.5 pages, 6 figures, accepted by Phys. Rev. B (Jan. B15 2001
Coherent resonant tunneling in ac fields
We have analyzed the tunneling transmission probability and electronic
current density through resonant heterostructures in the presence of an
external electromagnetic field. In this work, we compare two different models
for a double barrier : In the first case the effect of the external field is
taken into account by spatially dependent AC voltages and in the second one the
electromagnetic field is described in terms of a photon field that irradiates
homogeneously the whole sample. While in the first description the tunneling
takes place mainly through photo sidebands in the case of homogeneous
illumination the main effective tunneling channels correspond to the coupling
between different electronic states due to photon absorption and emission. The
difference of tunneling mechanisms between these configurations is strongly
reflected in the transmission and current density which present very different
features in both cases. In order to analyze these effects we have obtained,
within the Transfer Hamiltonian framework, a general expression for the
transition probability for coherent resonant tunneling in terms of the Green's
function of the system.Comment: 16 pages,Figures available upon request,to appear in Phys.Rev B (15
April 1996
Strong-field terahertz-optical mixing in excitons
Driving a double-quantum-well excitonic intersubband resonance with a
terahertz (THz) electric field of frequency \omega_{THz} generated terahertz
optical sidebands \omega=\omega_{THz}+\omega_{NIR} on a weak NIR probe. At high
THz intensities, the intersubband dipole energy which coupled two excitons was
comparable to the THz photon energy. In this strong-field regime the sideband
intensity displayed a non-monotonic dependence on the THz field strength. The
oscillating refractive index which gives rise to the sidebands may be
understood by the formation of Floquet states, which oscillate with the same
periodicity as the driving THz field.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure
Adiabatic quantum pump in the presence of external ac voltages
We investigate a quantum pump which in addition to its dynamic pump
parameters is subject to oscillating external potentials applied to the
contacts of the sample. Of interest is the rectification of the ac currents
flowing through the mesoscopic scatterer and their interplay with the quantum
pump effect. We calculate the adiabatic dc current arising under the
simultaneous action of both the quantum pump effect and classical
rectification. In addition to two known terms we find a third novel
contribution which arises from the interference of the ac currents generated by
the external potentials and the ac currents generated by the pump. The
interference contribution renormalizes both the quantum pump effect and the ac
rectification effect. Analysis of this interference effect requires a
calculation of the Floquet scattering matrix beyond the adiabatic approximation
based on the frozen scattering matrix alone. The results permit us to find the
instantaneous current. In addition to the current generated by the oscillating
potentials, and the ac current due to the variation of the charge of the frozen
scatterer, there is a third contribution which represents the ac currents
generated by an oscillating scatterer. We argue that the resulting pump effect
can be viewed as a quantum rectification of the instantaneous ac currents
generated by the oscillating scatterer. These instantaneous currents are an
intrinsic property of a nonstationary scattering process.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur
Low temperature transport in AC-driven Quantum Dots in the Kondo regime
We present a fully nonequilibrium calculation of the low temperature
transport properties of a quantum dot in the Kondo regime when an AC potential
is applied to the gate voltage. We solve a time dependent Anderson model with
finite on-site Coulomb interaction. The interaction self-energy is calculated
up to second order in perturbation theory in the on-site interaction, in the
context of the Keldysh non-equilibrium technique, and the effect of the AC
voltage is taken into account exactly for all ranges of AC frequencies and AC
intensities. The obtained linear conductance and time-averaged density of
states of the quantum dot evolve in a non trivial way as a function of the AC
frequency and AC intensity of the harmonic modulation.Comment: 30 pages,7 figure
Posterior eye shape measurement with retinal OCT compared to MRI
PURPOSE. Posterior eye shape assessment by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used to study myopia. We tested the hypothesis that optical coherence tomography (OCT), as an alternative, could measure posterior eye shape similarly to MRI. METHODS. Macular spectral-domain OCT and brain MRI images previously acquired as part of the Singapore Epidemiology of Eye Diseases study were analyzed. The right eye in the MRI and OCT images was automatically segmented. Optical coherence tomography segmentations were corrected for optical and display distortions requiring biometry data. The segmentations were fitted to spheres and ellipsoids to obtain the posterior eye radius of curvature (Rc) and asphericity (Qxz). The differences in Rc and Qxz measured by MRI and OCT were tested using paired t-tests. Categorical assignments of prolateness or oblateness using Qxz were compared. RESULTS. Fifty-two subjects (67.8 ± 5.6 years old) with spherical equivalent refraction from +0.50 to -5.38 were included. The mean paired difference between MRI and original OCT posterior eye Rc was 24.03 ± 46.49 mm (P = 0.0005). For corrected OCT images, the difference in Rc decreased to -0.23 ± 2.47 mm (P = 0.51). The difference between MRI and OCT asphericity, Qxz, was -0.052 ± 0.343 (P = 0.28). However, categorical agreement was only moderate (j = 0.50). CONCLUSIONS. Distortion-corrected OCT measurements of Rc and Qxz were not statistically significantly different from MRI, although the moderate categorical agreement suggests that individual differences remained. This study provides evidence that with distortion correction, noninvasive office-based OCT could potentially be used instead of MRI for the study of posterior eye shape
Charge Transport Through Open, Driven Two-Level Systems with Dissipation
We derive a Floquet-like formalism to calculate the stationary average
current through an AC driven double quantum dot in presence of dissipation. The
method allows us to take into account arbitrary coupling strengths both of a
time-dependent field and a bosonic environment. We numerical evaluate a
truncation scheme and compare with analytical, perturbative results such as the
Tien-Gordon formula.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev.
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